Automatic merging of map files in RoboHelp?

[ayfong]

[Hope this isn't a double post; my first attempt ended in network error and forum doesn't seem to have that post]

My group is charged with developing a help system using RoboHelp 7. Output type will be WebHelp. The interface between context-sensitive Help system and the target application will be a single project's output and a single map file. The plan for help development is to divide the work up into multiple layers of projects. The final output will be the result of multiple project merges from the bottom layer up.

RH7 enables this methodology with the WebHelp merge module...except that it doesn't automatically merge sub projects' map ID files (individual BSSCDefaults.h) into the master project's map ID file BSSCDefaults.h. I can use a different name for the sub projects' map files and import them into the master project, but this still does not result in the master's map file being modified. The map IDs remain dispersed across the multiple map files within the master project.

Is there a way to get an automatic concatenation of map ID files?

[MergeThis]

Our method is to use URLs for the CSH help calls (see Peter Grainge's excellent tutorial, as well as his other section on creating merged WebHelp). Then we use an alias file (we call it form_path.txt), which lists all the windows (forms) and their respective module folders. For example, if the help topic is named identically to the form name, see line 2. If it is not, see line 1.

AcctCategoryTargetFrm, mergedProjects\refwindows\category_targets_window.htm
AcctMainFrm, mergedProjects\refwindows


Good luck,
Leon

[ayfong]

Thanks for the suggestion. I was hoping that the answer would be other than that it's a manual procedure outside of RH7, but that's the conclusion given my previous [admittedly brief] searching within this site and thinking more about the RH paradigm (as explained in the Grainge article as well as the other Adobe articles).

For now, I'm going to have the team use the following process while we're shaking out our development methodology:
- each author follows the established naming convention for Topic IDs and use his/her assigned map number range when creating map IDs which should guarantee that the IDs are unique across all projects
- each author will export his/her projects' map file (for java applications) to a subfolder within their project
- rename the resultant BSSCDefaults.properties file to a globally unique filename
- copy that project-unique properties file to the specified folder
- one person/admin will concatenate the individual properties files into a single file to be used by the application developers


Comments?

ayf

[MergeThis]

Nope; whatever method gets you to the last step is what counts.


Good luck,
Leon